[espee]

captain_bazza, on 23 March 2010 - 01:55 PM, said:

Richard, I wonder if the flicker was related to lack of processing power at the time. Also, bear in mind it was originally only* used for the coal load level dropping (neat trick) which used just a few polys for the shape, we've now pushed the poly total way, way, out on FA used for detailing on locomotives.

Hey, what the heck, anyway - if it works, it works.

Cheers Bazza

*And freight loading, which was never setup in the release version.

Hey Captain !

Finally got an FA to flicker the other day.

And IMHO you are right, it is to do with processing power.

I was running a couple of our Hi poly FM's and a train on the Hi poly Redding California XL Edition and got the flicker on the loco FA's.

This activity was really making the cooling fan on the laptop scream

And the frame rate was struggling - so yes processing power or lack of it, will cause the FA to flicker.

[thegrindre]

espee, on 26 May 2010 - 10:46 AM, said:

Hey Rick,

Did you ever fix this problem ?

Because I ran into another limit regarding FA's that may have been or be your problem ?

Oh, yes, Richard. Once I made all the boiler parts a FreightAnim, everything is working quite well, now. Hasn't crashed once.
The main model is now the basic framework with trucks only. This brought the main model down to just under 10,000 polys and is now working just fine.
I'm going to assemble the whole thing back together again and give it a try in this new OR release to see if the crashing issues will arise again. I'm very curious...

[espee]

thegrindre, on 26 May 2010 - 12:21 PM, said:

Oh, yes, Richard. Once I made all the boiler parts a FreightAnim, everything is working quite well, now. Hasn't crashed once.
The main model is now the basic framework with trucks only. This brought the main model down to just under 10,000 polys and is now working just fine.
I'm going to assemble the whole thing back together again and give it a try in this new OR release to see if the crashing issues will arise again. I'm very curious...

Ok that's good.

The other limit I "seem" to have found wrt FA's, was, there appears to be a limit on the number of polys that are mapped to one texture.

In the models I build I usually have textures with little blocks of colour that various parts are mapped to.

To help with the LODing, I mapped all the grab irons and such to one texture, when the total polys of all these parts went over approx 2500, the model would not load in MSTS.

Took me forever to find out why it would not load - due to the excellent error messages in MSTS

I thought this might be your problem from what you had written above. A 10,000 poly FA with just 2 textures ?

But it wasn't so you can ignore this post

And, Roll On OR

[thegrindre]

espee, on 26 May 2010 - 12:40 PM, said:

The other limit I "seem" to have found wrt FA's, was, there appears to be a limit on the number of polys that are mapped to one texture.
And, Roll On OR

Thank you for this tidbit of info. I'll keep it in mind as I continue to build this and other models.

[captain_bazza]

Apologies Rick, I just revisited this thread.

Your model may be too complex.....what formats are those you mention?

Have you tried Shape Fix? I wrote up on a thread how to use it.

Cheers Bazza

[thegrindre]

No, Captn', never heard of it until very recently. I believe Howard was the only 'tester' that didn't experience a crash.. He mentioned something about running my Shay through it.

[captain_bazza]

Okay, I think that may be the only way to fix the problem. You'll be able to try it in OR later today. ZIP the relevant files, as converted, send it and I'll run it through SF for you.

Cheers Bazza

[thegrindre]

Oh, I don't want to do that yet but I will send you a copy if you want to play around with it all. I want to test this baby in the new OR later tonight just as is.
You got mail, Captn', or will shortly...

[captain_bazza]

I can't work on the source files, but I can run it thru SF for you and see what happens.

Cheers Bazza

[thegrindre]

I know, you're using TSM and I, 3DC.
Although, I can import your source files...